I’ve seen most of the major acting performances in contention for the Best Actor Oscar —save for “Maestro,” which I’ll be watching next Tuesday.
It does look as though I’ll be pulling for either Cillian Murphy or Leonardo DiCaprio to win the Oscar. Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”) and Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”) also deserve to be up there.
I have 11 Best Actor contenders on my predictions list. I can’t see anyone else being added. They are as follows:
Cillian Murphy — “Oppenheimer”
Bradley Cooper — “Maestro”
Leonardo DiCaprio — “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Paul Giamatti — “The Holdovers”
Colman Domingo — “Rustin”
Jeffrey Wright — “American Fiction”
Jamie Foxx — “The Burial”
Barry Keoghan — “Saltburn”
Joaquin Phoenix — “Napoleon”
Andrew Scott — “All of Us Strangers”
Zac Efron — “The Iron Claw”
If there’s a dark horse that isn’t part of this final 11, and that could sneak up into contention in the coming weeks, it’s Teo Yoo (“Past Lives”) who I thought gave the best performance in Celine Song’s highly praised film.
It’ll be hard to beat Cillian Murphy. It’s such a tour-de-force performance and he’s practically in every scene of the 3-hour “Oppenheimer.” His Robert J. Oppenheimer also turned into an unlikely meme generator this past summer with the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon. I don’t know many people who didn’t like his performance.
DiCaprio’s work in ‘Killers’ isn’t being talked about enough because, well, he doesn’t have much of a narrative. He already has an Oscar. If quality is actually a factor in winning awards, then DiCaprio’s rich work in ‘Killers’ would have a major shot at Oscar gold. It’s one of his best performances.
As I mentioned, I haven’t seen Bradley Cooper in “Maestro,” but those that have believe he has a clear shot at winning for his “transformative” performance as Leonard Bernstein. The film hasn’t been getting all-out raves from critics. It has a 76 on Metacritic and sits at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. Good, but not great. However, there are those that completely abide by “Maestro”, passionate supporters, which gets me very excited to finally catch it next week.
Paul Giamatti is wonderful as the curmudgeon professor in “The Holdovers.” He wasn’t even nominated, and should have won, for 2004’s “Sideways.” I can’t see him getting snubbed again for this performance. He will also likely not win, but crazier upsets have occured in the past.
I believe we have four locks in this category — Murphy, Cooper, DiCaprio and Giamatti. The #5 slot could be a fight between Domingo and Wright. However, watch out for Zac Efron (“The Iron Claw”) as his film as barely been seen and I’m hearing good things about his performance.
Still no distributor for "Bucking Fastard," "Alpha Gang," "The Last Photograph," "Closing Night," and "The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd." The issue seems to be quality more than a lack of willingness to buy.